Writing

Leisure in the Age of Technology I was nine years old and a computer had just found me a friend. This was 1988, at World Expo in Brisbane, and the…

In any functioning business, thousands of micro-decisions are made every week without a single meeting being called. The people making these calls are…

A few years ago, a sports psychologist watched Reg Bamford lose a match at a tournament in Brighton, England. Bamford is one of the greatest croquet…

Queensland croquet needs more members. They are extremely valuable economically. Every new member is three things at once: paying customer, an unpaid…

Say 40% of people in a group can do a particular task. A healthy number. Now say 30% can do a second, unrelated task. Also a healthy percentage of the…

Jennifer Shahade is sitting at a chessboard in a video for The Economist , talking about the middle game. She’s a Chess Grandmaster, and she’s describing…

The spaces we lost In 1980, Sydney had 210 bowling clubs. By 2022, that number was 128, with 51 closures in the past decade alone . Professor Robert…

A single interaction rewards selfishness. This is mathematically provable. But repeat that interaction, and co-operation becomes the winning strategy.…

Someone at your organisation has read the policy more carefully than the people who wrote it. Not to follow it. To find where it stops. The medieval…

Your new washing machine has 14 wash cycles. You use three. Your TV remote has 47 buttons. You use six. The last time you upgraded your phone, it came…

The Painter and the Sculptor A painter has a blank canvas. Nothing exists until the artist puts it there. Colour by colour, layer by layer, the image…

The treasurer’s job Most clubs describe the treasurer role something like this: maintain the books, issue invoices, reconcile the accounts, prepare…

The problem every committee knows Permission provides the compass to guide committees. I see the same pattern across croquet clubs in Queensland. The…

The system nobody uses A few years ago, a national sporting body rolled out a new membership management platform to its state associations. It could do…

Why your volunteers hate asking people to join There’s a moment in every Come and Try session that everyone dreads. The new people have been playing for a…

The launch that nobody came to I’ve watched this happen more than once in volunteer organisations. Someone builds something good, a new website, a…